The Lenders' Choice Award is the one category of the Mortgage Technology Awards where professionals from mortgage lending and servicing companies get to pick the vendors that will be named the finalists and winner of the award.

Voters are asked to rank three vendors based on their combined, overall assessment of the following criteria: best customer service, value proposition and overall user experience.

In previous years, Lenders' Choice Award voting was limited to the mortgage companies named to MT's Top Tech-Savvy Lenders & Servicers list. For 2014, voting will be open to confirmed employees of any mortgage lending and servicing institution. Multiple individuals from the same organization may submit a ballot, but only one ballot per person will be accepted. There is no fee to submit a ballot and individual ballots will remain confidential.

New Bonus Points Feature

Vendors earn points based on the ranking they receive on each ballot: first place votes are worth three points, second place votes are worth two points, and third place votes are worth one point. In another new feature of the 2014 Lenders' Choice Award, vendors will receive bonus points based on the number of mortgage companies that voted for them.

Vendors will be awarded three bonus points for every five mortgage companies whose employees voted for them. For example, if one employee from five different mortgage companies each submit a ballot that includes a vote for the same vendor, the vendor will receive three bonus points in addition to the points earned from each ballot. If five employees from the same mortgage company each submit a ballot that includes a vote for the vendor, then the vendor will only receive the points earned from those ballots, and would not receive bonus points unless employees from four other mortgage companies vote for the vendor.